Combination of diabetes and heart disease shorten life expectancy significantly

Researchers led by Dr Emanuele Di Angelantonio and Professor John Danesh (Department of Public Health & Primary Care) have analysed more than 135,000 deaths that occurred during prolonged follow-up of nearly 1.2 million participants in population cohorts. They used the data to provide estimates of reductions in life expectancy associated with a history of different combinations of diabetes, stroke, and/or myocardial infarction heart attack – so-called cardiometabolic diseases.

Previous studies have estimated that around 10 million adults in the United States and the European Union are living with more than one cardiometabolic illness. In this new study, the researchers found that around one person in hundred had two or more conditions, and estimated that at the age of 60 years, men with any two of the cardiometabolic conditions studied would on average have 12 years of reduced life expectancy, and men with all three conditions would have 14 years of reduced life expectancy. For women at the age of 60 years, the corresponding estimates were 13 years and 16 years of reduced life expectancy.

The figures were even more dramatic for patients at a younger age. At the age of 40 years, men with all three cardiometabolic conditions would on average have 23 years of reduced life expectancy; for women at the same age, the corresponding estimate was 20 years.